Oscar-tipped movie American Sniper has failed to replicate its U.S. success across the Atlantic by limping home in second place in the U.K. box office chart battle. The blockbuster, starring Bradley Cooper as real-life crack shot soldier Chris Kyle, opened to disappointing ticket sales of $4 million (£2.5 million) over the weekend (16-18Jan15).
It was easily beaten to the top spot by Liam Neeson's action sequel Taken 3, which notched up sales of $5.3 million (£3.3 million) in its second week of release.
The Theory of Everything came a close third with $3.7 million (£2.3 million), and the top five was rounded out by Into The Woods, with box office receipts of $3.2 million (£2 million), and kids' movie Paddington, which took $1.5 million (£943,000).

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies has held strong at the top of the North American box office for a second week in a row.
The third and final film in director Peter Jackson's The Hobbit franchise took $55 million over the extended holiday weekend to triumph over Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, which opens with $47 million.
Movie musical Into the Woods is new at three with $46 million, while Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and Annie close out the top five at four and five, respectively.
Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood's new film American Sniper has set a new record for the largest limited Christmas release at the North American box office.
The biopic, starring Bradley Cooper as America's deadliest sniper, the late Chris Kyle, was screened in fewer than 10 theaters, but still managed to rake in $212,500 in takings.
Seth Rogen and James Franco's controversial comedy The Interview, which was initially pulled by Sony Pictures bosses amid threats to cinema-goers' safety, was another big limited hit, earning $2.8 million from showings in 331 theatres.

DreamWorks
For the bulk of every Rocky and Bullwinkle episode, moose and squirrel would engage in high concept escapades that satirized geopolitics, contemporary cinema, and the very fabrics of the human condition. With all of that to work with, there's no excuse for why the pair and their Soviet nemeses haven't gotten a decent movie adaptation. But the ingenious Mr. Peabody and his faithful boy Sherman are another story, intercut between Rocky and Bullwinkle segments to teach kids brief history lessons and toss in a nearly lethal dose of puns. Their stories and relationship were much simpler, which means that bringing their shtick to the big screen would entail a lot more invention — always risky when you're dealing with precious material.
For the most part, Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman handles the regeneration of its heroes aptly, allowing for emotionally substance in their unique father-son relationship and all the difficulties inherent therein. The story is no subtle metaphor for the difficulties surrounding gay adoption, with society decreeing that a dog, no matter how hyper-intelligent, cannot be a suitable father. The central plot has Peabody hosting a party for a disapproving child services agent and the parents of a young girl with whom 7-year-old Sherman had a schoolyard spat, all in order to prove himself a suitable dad. Of course, the WABAC comes into play when the tots take it for a spin, forcing Peabody to rush to their rescue.
Getting down to personals, we also see the left brain-heavy Peabody struggle with being father Sherman deserves. The bulk of the emotional marks are hit as we learn just how much Peabody cares for Sherman, and just how hard it has been to accept that his only family is growing up and changing.
DreamWorks
But more successful than the new is the film's handling of the old — the material that Peabody and Sherman purists will adore. They travel back in time via the WABAC Machine to Ancient Egypt, the Renaissance, and the Trojan War, and 18th Century France, explaining the cultural backdrop and historical significance of the settings and characters they happen upon, all with that irreverent (but no longer racist) flare that the old cartoons enjoyed. And oh... the puns.
Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman is a f**king treasure trove of some of the most amazingly bad puns in recent cinema. This effort alone will leave you in awe.
The film does unravel in its final act, bringing the science-fiction of time travel a little too close to the forefront and dropping the ball on a good deal of its emotional groundwork. What seemed to be substantial building blocks do not pay off in the way we might, as scholars of animated family cinema, have anticipated, leaving the movie with an unfinished feeling.
But all in all, it's a bright, compassionate, reasonably educational, and occasionally funny if not altogether worthy tribute to an old favorite. And since we don't have our own WABAC machine to return to a time of regularly scheduled Peabody and Sherman cartoons, this will do okay for now.
If nothing else, it's worth your time for the puns.
3/5
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Summit via Everett Collection
You can imagine that Renny Harlin, director and one quadrant of the writing team for The Legend of Hercules, began his pitch as such: We'll start with a war, because lots of these things start with wars. It feels like this was the principal maxim behind a good deal of the creative choices in this latest update of the Ancient Greek myth. There are always horse riding scenes. There are generally arena battles. There are CGI lions, when you can afford 'em. Oh, and you've got to have a romantic couple canoodling at the base of a waterfall. Weaving them all together cohesively would be a waste of time — just let the common threads take form in a remarkably shouldered Kellan Lutz and action sequences that transubstantiate abjectly to and fro slow-motion.
But pervading through Lutz's shirtless smirks and accent continuity that calls envy from Johnny Depp's Alice in Wonderland performance is the obtrusive lack of thought that went into this picture. A proverbial grab bag of "the basics" of the classic epic genre, The Legend of Hercules boasts familiarity over originality. So much so that the filmmakers didn't stop at Hercules mythology... they barely started with it, in fact. There's more Jesus Christ in the character than there is the Ancient Greek demigod, with no lack of Gladiator to keep things moreover relevant. But even more outrageous than the void of imagination in the construct of Hercules' world is its script — a piece so comically dim, thin, and idiotic that you will laugh. So we can't exactly say this is a totally joyless time at the movies.
Summit via Everett Collection
Surrounding Hercules, a character whose arc takes him from being a nice enough strong dude to a nice enough strong dude who kills people and finally owns up to his fate — "Okay, fine, yes, I guess I'm a god" — are a legion of characters whose makeup and motivations are instituted in their opening scenes and never change thereafter. His de facto stepdad, the teeth-baring King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins), despises the boy for being a living tribute to his supernatural cuckolding; his half-brother Iphicles (Liam Garrigan) is the archetypical scheming, neutered, jealous brother figure right down to the facial scar. The dialogue this family of mongoloids tosses around is stunningly brainless, ditto their character beats. Hercules can't understand how a mystical stranger knows his identity, even though he just moments ago exited a packed coliseum chanting his name. Iphicles defies villainy and menace when he threatens his betrothed Hebe (Gaia Weiss), long in love with Hercules, with the terrible fate of "accepting [him] and loving [their] children equally!" And the dad... jeez, that guy must really be proud of his teeth.
With no artistic feat successfully accomplished (or even braved, really) by this movie, we can at the very least call it inoffensive. There is nothing in The Legend of Hercules with which to take issue beyond its dismal intellect, and in a genre especially prone to regressive activity, this is a noteworthy triumph. But you might not have enough energy by the end to award The Legend of Hercules with this superlative. Either because you'll have laughed yourself into a coma at the film's idiocy, or because you'll have lost all strength trying to fend it off.
1/5
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Lions Gate via Everett Collection
When we last left our heroes, they had conquered all opponents in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, returned home to their newly refurbished living quarters in District 12, and fallen haplessly to the cannibalism of PTSD. And now we're back! Hitching our wagons once again to laconic Katniss Everdeen and her sweet-natured, just-for-the-camera boyfriend Peeta Mellark as they gear up for a second go at the Capitol's killing fields.
But hold your horses — there's a good hour and a half before we step back into the arena. However, the time spent with Katniss and Peeta before the announcement that they'll be competing again for the ceremonial Quarter Quell does not drag. In fact, it's got some of the film franchise's most interesting commentary about celebrity, reality television, and the media so far, well outweighing the merit of The Hunger Games' satire on the subject matter by having Katniss struggle with her responsibilities as Panem's idol. Does she abide by the command of status quo, delighting in the public's applause for her and keeping them complacently saturated with her smiles and curtsies? Or does Katniss hold three fingers high in opposition to the machine into which she has been thrown? It's a quarrel that the real Jennifer Lawrence would handle with a castigation of the media and a joke about sandwiches, or something... but her stakes are, admittedly, much lower. Harvey Weinstein isn't threatening to kill her secret boyfriend.
Through this chapter, Katniss also grapples with a more personal warfare: her devotion to Gale (despite her inability to commit to the idea of love) and her family, her complicated, moralistic affection for Peeta, her remorse over losing Rue, and her agonizing desire to flee the eye of the public and the Capitol. Oftentimes, Katniss' depression and guilty conscience transcends the bounds of sappy. Her soap opera scenes with a soot-covered Gale really push the limits, saved if only by the undeniable grace and charisma of star Lawrence at every step along the way of this film. So it's sappy, but never too sappy.
In fact, Catching Fire is a masterpiece of pushing limits as far as they'll extend before the point of diminishing returns. Director Francis Lawrence maintains an ambiance that lends to emotional investment but never imposes too much realism as to drip into territories of grit. All of Catching Fire lives in a dreamlike state, a stark contrast to Hunger Games' guttural, grimacing quality that robbed it of the life force Suzanne Collins pumped into her first novel.
Once we get to the thunderdome, our engines are effectively revved for the "fun part." Katniss, Peeta, and their array of allies and enemies traverse a nightmare course that seems perfectly suited for a videogame spin-off. At this point, we've spent just enough time with the secondary characters to grow a bit fond of them — deliberately obnoxious Finnick, jarringly provocative Johanna, offbeat geeks Beedee and Wiress — but not quite enough to dissolve the mystery surrounding any of them or their true intentions (which become more and more enigmatic as the film progresses). We only need adhere to Katniss and Peeta once tossed in the pit of doom that is the 75th Hunger Games arena, but finding real characters in the other tributes makes for a far more fun round of extreme manhunt.
But Catching Fire doesn't vie for anything particularly grand. It entertains and engages, having fun with and anchoring weight to its characters and circumstances, but stays within the expected confines of what a Hunger Games movie can be. It's a good one, but without shooting for succinctly interesting or surprising work with Katniss and her relationships or taking a stab at anything but the obvious in terms of sending up the militant tyrannical autocracy, it never even closes in on the possibility of being a great one.
3.5/5
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After Dark Films
It seems a bit odd to take on a movie review of Courtney Solomon's Getaway, as only in the loosest terms is Getaway actually a movie. We begin without questions — other than a vague and frustrating "What the hell is going on?" — and end without answers, watching Ethan Hawke drive his car into things (and people) for the hour and a half in between. We learn very little along the way, probed to engage in the mystery of the journey. But we don't, because there's no reason to.
There's not a single reason to wonder about any of the things that happen to Hawke's former racecar driver/reformed criminal — forced to carry out a series of felonious commands by a mysterious stranger who is holding his wife hostage — because there doesn't seem to be a single ounce of thought poured into him beyond what he see. We learn, via exposition delivered by him to gun-toting computer whiz Selena Gomez, that he "did some bad things" before meeting the love of his life and deciding to put that all behind him. Then, we stop learning. We stop thinking. We start crashing into police cars and Christmas trees and power plants.
Why is Selena Gomez along for the ride? Well, the beginnings of her involvement are defensible: Hawke is carrying out his slew of vehicular crimes in a stolen car. It's her car. And she's on a rampage to get it back. But unaware of what she's getting herself into, Gomez confronts an idling Hawke with a gun, is yanked into the automobile, and forced to sit shotgun while the rest of the driver's "assignments" are carried out. But her willingness to stick by Hawke after hearing his story is ludicrous. Their immediate bickering falls closer to catty sexual tension than it does to genuine derision and fear (you know, the sort of feelings you'd have for someone who held you up or forced you into accessorizing a buffet of life-threatening crimes).
After Dark Films
The "gradual" reversal of their relationship is treated like something we should root for. But with so little meat packed into either character, the interwoven scenes of Hawke and Gomez warming up to each other and becoming a team in the quest to save the former's wife serve more than anything else as a breather from all the grotesque, impatient, deliberately unappealing scenes of city wreckage.
And as far as consolidating the mystery, the film isn't interested in that either, as evidenced by its final moments. Instead of pressing focus on the answers to whatever questions we may have, the movie's ultimate reveal is so weak, unsubstantial, and entirely disconnected to the story entirely, that it seems almost offensive to whatever semblance of a film might exist here to go out on this note. Offensive to the idea of film and story in general, as a matter of fact. But Getaway isn't concerned with these notions. Not with story, character, logic, or humanity. It just wants to show us a bunch of car crashes and explosions. So you'd think it might have at least made those look a little better.
1/5
More Reviews:'The Hunt' Is Frustrating and Fantastic'You're Next' Amuses and Occasionally Scares'Short Term 12' Is Real and Miraculous
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Every movie critic in the known world sees hundreds of movies every year, mostly for free, and then they sit down and distill everything they see into a Top 10 list. But what about all the other movies they've seen? How can we even know what their taste is like if we don't know how they felt about the other 98.7 movies they saw that year (that .7 is for the one movie they walked out of at Cannes because they just couldn't possibly get through it all). And they get to see all the movies before the rest of us, so everyone put Zero Dark 30 on their Top 10 lists and it's not even out in most of the country right now. This whole gambit of list making is a scam!
Well, to combat all that critical scammery and art house movie snobbery, here is a list of every single movie that I saw in a movie theater during the calendar year 2012. There are 65 of them. I paid to see 54 of them, so unlike the professional cinema elite, I saw a majority of these with you, the fans, on rainy Saturday afternoons and boring Tuesday evenings. I also spent about $17 trillion for the honor. And here is my opinion on every single movie I saw in a theater. Are you ready?
1. Silver Linings Playbook: If I was giving out the Oscars today, I would hand it over to this David O. Russell movie, even though I'm still a little bit mad about how he treated Lily Tomlin. This is the type of movie I like best, one that hews closely to a set format but does it so well that it busts out of the genre entirely. This should be your basic rom-com, but made in the hands of someone with care and insight, it is also a look at mental illness, loss, redemption, family, dance competitions, and just how difficult it is to stand out in suburban America. Bolstered by great performances including by the usually milquetoast Bradley Cooper and the always astounding Jennifer Lawrence. There's even a good turn by Robert De Niro, whose modern work is about as uniformly bland as a can full of Slim Jims at a gas station mini-mart. Smart, different, and extremely winning, this is a movie that is like a million you've seen before, but somehow manages to break the mold.
2. Argo: This deserves to be at the top of the list for Ben Affleck's hair alone, but this affecting thriller about American hostages in Iran fuses drama, comedy, and some (yes, made-up) tension to make real events spectacular.
3. The Sessions: What seems like a sweet movie about a mostly paralyzed man learning how to have sex turns out to be a very sweet movie about a mostly paralyzed man learning to have sex: an engaging story that goes for the heart without getting sentimental. John Hawkes better start winning some damn awards.
4. Headhunters: Not many people went to see this Norwegian film about a headhunter who uses people's job interviews to break into their houses and steal all their art, but you're really missing out. As the movie progresses, our anti-hero gets more and more desperate and things get grosser and grosser as he tries to find a way to get his life back to normal. Normal never comes, but the twists don't stop until the very end.
5. Queen of Versailles: If you love the Real Housewives of Every American Town, then you need to see this documentary about a family trying to build the largest house in America and losing everything in the process.
6. Cabin in the Woods: I do not enjoy horror movies, but this movie, contrary to its marketing, is not really a horror movie. It's a comedy, a comment on genre, and a meta look at how we consume and enjoy movies. Its cleverness never becomes twee and the ending is so good that if anyone spoils it for you, you should sic Freddy Krueger on their ass.
7. How to Survive a Plague: This documentary about the early days of AIDS activism is just as fascinating when examining lives of the heroes who risked everything to get patients experimental medication as when their organization ACT-UP falls apart because of its own success. There's also a 10-hankie twist three-quarters of the way through which shows the path toward hope.
8. ParaNorman: The best kids movies are the ones that take adult themes (like bullying, not fitting in, and troubled family dynamics) and make them suitable for children. If you can do that in a great story about witches and zombies that is full of first-rate gags, then, well, you deserve to be in the Top 10.
9. Skyfall: Daniel Craig is great. James Bond is great. When you get them both doing the best work the franchise has done in decades, well, that's just greatness squared.
10. Farewell My Queen: Oh great, another movie about Marie Antoinette. But if you see any movies about the privileged aristocrat, it should be this one. The film is told through the eyes of a servant girl trying to survive the final days of the French aristocracy while staying true to herself and her queen.
11. The Avengers: Sure, the story for this culmination of the last five years of Marvel superhero movies was a bit complicated and contrived, but Joss Whedon knows how to keep us laughing and engaged for two-plus hours of super powers, alien invasions, and Hulk transformations. This is what you want every blockbuster to be like.
12. Your Sister's Sister: This "mumblecore" movie about a lesbian who sleeps with her sister's best friend seems like it should be a cut-and-paste character study about Pacific Northwest hipster types, but the emotional turns keep coming and the complications seems revelatory rather than contrived. Bonus points to Emily Blunt for finally making a really stellar movie.
13. Cloud Atlas: Everyone hated this ambitious project that tried to roll six movies into one. I did not. It had its problems, but from what I saw, it was the most successful of this year's overly ambitious movies. Sure, some of it was totally nuts, but it was always entertaining.
14. Chronicle: Finally, a way to do the "found footage" movie that doesn't seem like a total scam. This story about three teenagers who get telekinetic powers was the first truly experimental entry into the superhero genre we've seen in a long time. Let's hope the sequel doesn't screw it up.
15. Miss Bala: If you want to see the destruction drug cartels have created in Mexico, then try this saga about a beauty queen whose life gets increasingly desperate as she tries to find a way out of an impossible situation.
16. 21 Jump Street: Channing Tatum is funny. Go figure!
17. The Dark Knight Rises: Too long, too complicated, and too politcally murky, this finale to a great triology still managed to be pretty awesome. Most of that is due to Miss Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle).
18. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: A spy thriller so unemotional, it should have been called All These Men Came in from the Cold. Still a great mind-bender.
19. Magic Mike: Considering how much naked male flesh per capita this movie promised, I wanted to like it more. I think I would have if it hadn't been marketed as a good time feast of flesh and then delivered a dour rumination on sex and longing. That rumination was worth having, but we were sold strippers and glitter and given heartbreak and desperation.
20. Looper: I hate time travel and even I loved this truly inventive dystopian action movie. It gets credit for having the most original vision of the future that we've seen in a long time.
21. Moonrise Kingdom: It's too twee for its own good, but Wes Anderson's story about young love is winning and memorable. And you can't hate anything with Tilda Swinton.
22. The Master: Oh, man. This one. Paul Thomas Anderson knows how to make a beautiful film and knows how to get a stellar performance, but this tale about a guru and the animalistic man who becomes his right-hand never really adds up to much. But what good are great characters if you don't give them anything exciting to do?
23. Life of Pi: For a movie that creates such amazing visuals using boats sinking into the ocean and whales jumping out of it, it's ironic that the story is as shallow as a half-evaporated puddle.
24. Pitch Perfect: Good songs, great jokes, Rebel Wilson, and a puke scene that will make you bust a gut – this Glee-on-film flick has everything you need.
25. Max et les Ferrailleurs: Someone dragged me to the delayed American release of this 1971 French movie about a cop who goes too far undercover investigating petty criminals. I'm glad he did, not only for the great retro outfits, but for the emotionally complicated look at a familiar story.
26. The Dictator: As long as you don't have a problem with rape jokes, this is a silly good time.
27. The Amazing Spider-Man: Not every superhero needs to be remade as dark and brooding and not every superhero franchise needs to be remade.
28. The Hunger Games: I loved the book, but the movie just didn't have the weight and dread that the books conjured. However, I'll see Jennifer Lawrence in anything.
29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Never read the book, but I liked the movie well enough. I mostly liked Daniel Craig's winter wardrobe, which is funny because I usually like him wearing next to nothing.
30. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Old people in India are cute, aren't they?
31. Lawless: Tom Hardy gives one of those great silent performances where you just read everything about his defiant bootlegger character on his face. Shia LaBeouf is...well, he's in this movie.
32. Wanderlust: My New Year's resolution for 2012 was to hate Jennifer Aniston less. This modern day hippie movie sure helped. But I think I liked it mostly for Paul Rudd.
33. Beauty and the Beast 3D: Tale as old as time. True as it can be. I saw it again. With a group of friends. We saw it in 3D.
34. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: This Tolkien prequel was more bloated the your fat grandmother after Thanksgiving dinner.
35. Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel: This is a lackluster documentary with a magnificent subject. If you don't know everything about this former Vogue editor, then get the movie right away.
36. Wreck-It Ralph: I wanted this video game nostalgia trip to be like The Incredibles for a Nintendo generation. Instead, the only cute thing about it was the Q-Bert gags.
37. This is 40: Judd Apatow takes an interesting and unvarnished look at middle age but a good portion of the movie is as unnecessary as a third cupcake.
38. A Cat in Paris: Stellar animation and a rather grown-up story still couldn't save this mediocre kid's flick.
39. Snow White and the Huntsman: Even the absolute fierceness of Charlize Theron's evil queen couldn't fix this eye-rolling wretch of a fairy tale.
40. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: I remember enjoying this action movie, but don't remember one single thing about it. Guess it couldn't be that good.
41. Albert Nobbs: 2012 was a year of great performances in dull movies. There were two women playing men in this one, both worth checking out, but maybe in a better script.
42. John Carter: Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad. It was pretty and moved along and Taylor Kitsch had his shirt off the entire time!
43. Seven Psychopaths: Too clever for its own good, this making-a-movie-about-making-a-movie had some keen insights that got lost in a lot of mush.
44. Premium Rush: This year, Joseph Gordon-Levitt could do no wrong. Well, maybe except for this slightly absurd but still good fun biking movie.
45. The Secret World of Arriety: This is animation master Hayao Miyazaki at his worst, trying to turn the children's fare The Borrowers into something of his own. The animation was stellar as always, but the narrative could have used some of his signature mythological flourishes.
46. Les Miserables: I always hated the show and the movie suffers from the same problems: too long, too boring, and doesn't make any sense. Added to that the direction swoops in on the actors as they sing and over emote during their solos. This goes a little higher up on the list thanks to Anne Hathaway (enjoy that Oscar, sister) and because "Castle on a Cloud" got stuck in my head for a week.
47. Django Unchained: Quentin Tarantino thinks that he is so funny, and his smugness in his own hilarity is all over this movie, where each scene goes on too long and half of the story is unnecessary. What Tarantino needs more than anything is a good editor.
48. Prometheus: I really wanted this to be better and I thought I liked this Alien prequel until, well, I thought about it some more and it really didn't make any sense. But I will never forget her nasty alien abortion. Gross.
49. Friends With Kids: This Jennifer Westfelt rom-com was an interesting experiment in trying to make a rom-com that wasn't a rom-com at all, but, in the end, it became just like every other sappy Hollywood movie it pretended to hate in the first place.
50. Bachelorette: This Bridesmaids rip off wasted Rebel Wilson, Lizzy Caplan, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, and the rest of the talented cast. Even worse, writer director Leslye Headland wasted her brilliantly caustic play by turning it into a toothless, conventional movie.
51. Hitchcock: Great makeup does not a great movie make. Like My Week with Marilyn before it, this thing was like an overly long Vanity Fair article come to life.
52. The Iron Lady: Meryl deserved that Oscar. The rest of us deserve to forget this sloppy movie forever.
53. Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston: A great subject wasted on a filmmaker who has no idea what he is doing and thinks we care as much about him as the fashion icon. The best scene in the movie is when Vogue legend Andre Leon Talley yells at director Whitney Smith for not having done his research.
54. Five-Year Engagement: This felt like it went on for not five years but 20. Oh, Emily Blunt, please stop making bad movies.
55. Savages: The best I can say for this overly-violent, utterly rote Oliver Stone drug drama is that everyone looks really good with their clothes off.
56. Hysteria: I went to see this on a Friday afternoon in the summer in an empty theater in Manhattan. It was literally empty except for me and a friend and two people sat in the seats directly behind us and then talked through the movie! I had to yell at them and tell them to shut up and move because there are hundreds of seats, you don't pick the ones that are directly behind the only two other people in the theater. Then I felt bad because this dildo drama was so boring I wanted to make fun of it with my friend, but since I made a stance about being quiet in the movies I had to keep it all in. Well, until now.
57. Pina: This documentary about choreographer Pina Bausch had some of the best 3D I'd ever seen. Too bad there was too much repetitive dancing and not enough about her life.
58. Flight: This is not a movie, it's an illustrated story from an AA meeting. The plane crash at the beginning is pretty amazing though.
59. Wrath of the Titans: This Greek Mythology something-or-other makes about as much sense as a unicorn having a baby with a Sphinx.
60. The Ocean Waves: OK, I was wrong, this is Miyazaki at his worst. I saw this at a retrospective of his work at IFC Center and it had never been shown in the U.S. before. Let's hope this overblown teen melodrama is never shown here again either.
61. Dark Shadows: Why did we have to waste Michelle Pfieffer's comeback on this?
62. W.E.: As an American Homosexual, I can not say anything mean about Madonna. I will say that Madonna's nonsensical movie about Wallis Simpson looked like the most gorgeous magazine pictorial I ever saw. Oh, and I saw this at the premiere and Madonna was there. She wore a nice dress.
63. Damsels in Distress: I don't know what Whit Stillman was trying to say in this outdated take on girls in college, and I don't think I want to know either.
64. Chasing Mavericks: How did someone convince me to pay money to see a movie with Gerard Butler? The only reason this wasn't in last place is because the surfing footage was absolutely stunning.
65. Killing Them Softly: What makes this movie the worst is that it (and plenty of other people) think it is one of the best. It is not. It is about Brad Pitt going to clean up some mob mess and there are a bunch of characters all of whose arcs are going nowhere. There is no character exploration, there is no thematic development, there is nothing. That includes women (there is literally one woman in this movie and she is a whore) or sense behind the glorified violence. Yeah, it looks pretty cool, but most of it doesn't leave any commentary on violence it all. It's just gore for the sake of it. Oh, and in case you missed it, the point is that the mob is just like America or politics or something, which is why we keep hearing Barack Obama give speeches about our economic future during the action of the movie. Yes, we get it. We get it. How about some subtlety next time?
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: The Weinstein Company (2); Warner Bros (2); Lionsgate; Fox Searchlight; Focus Features; Columba Pictures (2); Walt Disney; Universal Pictures]
More:
The Ultimate Top 10 Movies of 2012 List
The 20 Best Movies of 2012 (and the 5 Worst)
10 Best Box Office Bombs of 2012
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10 Pop Culture Moments That Would’ve Been Better Naked

Shhh. Can you hear it? Can you hear that little whistle on the wind? Yes, that is the sound of souls being sucked out of bodies. That is the sound of weaves being tightened and Botox needles cascading from a red plastic container of biomedical waste into a dumpster. That is the sound of sleeves being slit up the center so that women can show off their perfectly toned shoulders. Yes, that can only mean one thing: the Real Pirouettes of Folderol Gulch have returned for their annual mating season. Well, not mating so much as socializing at bull***t parties, getting mad at each other, and airing their grievances for the world to see. With the churn and snap of gristle ratcheting into place, the female beasts of Beverly Hills get ready to graze once again.
As with all things, let us begin with their high priestess, who holds a virgin heart in her hands and raises it up to her pagan god, the blood rolling down her outstretched arms, not scarlet or crimson or maroon, but pink. Yes, that is Lisa Vanderpump and she has a new burnished granite cave to call her own. Did you see Lisa's freaking house? It's like the Fortress of Solitude but made out of white marble. She said she wanted something "smaller" but this thing is, wow. Alright, now we need to talk about her closet. People always go into a walk-in closet and jealously say, "Wow, this is as big as my whole apartment." Brandi goes into it and says, "Wow, this is as big as my whole apartment," and she is actually telling the truth. Her closet is immense and immaculately organized and then, it opens up into a secret beauty lair, where she does all her bloodletting, face tightening, and stem cell harvesting to keep herself looking spry and sprightly. If ever I was jealous of a person living in a pink and white hive of luxury, then this was the time.
Anyway, Brandi was over Lisa's house because they are now besties since no one else really likes them. They say they're really tight, but their relationship seems to consist of Brandi flirting with Lisa's husband Ken, the forgotten member of Cheap Trick, and Lisa laughing about it because she knows that a Playboy pinup like Brandi doesn't really have any interest in her husband's ripe gherkin getting anywhere close to her vagina hole.
After a turn at Lisa's house, it's Lisa's time to go visit Brandi at her Sad Ranch in the Valley, which she seems to have inherited from Kim Richards. Brandi's house sort of looks like what would happen if a trailer decided that it didn't want to move anymore, planted itself in the dirt and pushed up some lawn and shrubs all around it. It is not at all spectacular (unlike Brandi's bosom) but she is happy and content, so good for my girl Brandi. While the two are hanging out there, Kyle's adorable daughter Portia calls Lisa on the phone and says, "Lisa, dahhhling. Come to my birfday pawtee. It's at 1."
Yes, Portia is learning how to use a phone. Not how to dial and hold a headset like most people learn, she is learning to call her friends and talk only on speakerphone. That is how Real Housewives do it, after all. Because it's on speaker, Brandi overhears and says, "Hi, Kyle, it's Brandi!" Now, she wasn't quite looking for an invitation to the party, but she got one and she tells Kyle she would love to come. Brandi says, "Oh, yeah, me and Kyle are friends." and Kyle says, "I don't have any problem with Brandi," but you can see the truth right behind their eyes. It's like how the IRA feels about the Northern Irish. There's supposedly a cease fire, but the first person to take the name of the Virgin Mary in vain is going to get their face bloodied with a rotting potato.
Speaking of missing invitation and speaker phone, Taylor's lips, which are a separate symbiotic organism that lives on her face, disconnected themselves from her head and walked over to meet Adrienne, Queen of the Maloofs (a race of mole people that live under a mountain), and her husband Pozo the Chimp for dinner. "Hey girl," Taylor's lips say. "I'm not really eating tonight, because I left the mouth at home, but Taylor has gained 10 whole pounds and now she can't squeeze into any of her cocktail dresses. Will you take that bitch shopping, because if she shows up in one more pair of black harem pants that her skinny ass can't fill in so it looks like she's carting a dump around a party, then I am going to find some other head to latch onto, because I can't take it anymore? Oh, that and she needs something to wear to the Villa Blanca Anniversary Party on Wednesday."
"Oh, what Villa Blanca Anniversary Party on Wednesday? I haven't heard anything about that!" Queen Maloof says. Well, that is because Lisa did not invite her. Yes, Lisa and Adrienne are in a fight. That's not necessarily true. Adrienne decided that she is mad at Lisa. Why? Who the hell knows. A black and white reunion flashback told us it has something to do with selling a story to the tabloids. It really has nothing to do with anything. It's not like even one of those stupid Housewives fights like, "I was having a charity luncheon and you tried to 'clear the air' with X and then it just wasn't the time. You owe me an apology." No, it's not even that. It's just some stupid thing that Adrienne made up in her mind that she is angry with Lisa and isn't talking to her. That is why no one is on Adrienne's side, because she has nothing to be angry about. Adrienne is a Housewife. She can't even make up a fake reason that seems vaguely rational?
Once Adrienne knows about the party she says, "If Lisa's objective was to embarrass me, then she did it." Oh please, Adrienne. That wasn't her intent at all. She didn't even think that hard about it. She thought, "Should I invite Adrienne to my party? That bitch is mad at me. Nope!" and then licked her crystal-encrusted pencil and crossed her name off the list. It makes total sense. And if we're talking about embarrassment, how do you think Lisa feels when you falsely accused her of selling stories to a tabloid on national television? You think she feels all warm and fuzzy inside like she just masturbated and then ate a big bowl of soup and a brownie? No, she feels like shit. Lisa says she's ready to move on if Adrienne calls her with an apology. I think that seems fair, but this looks like it's headed for a big old confrontation.
Like a kid sitting at the top of the stairs waiting to rush down on Christmas Day and tear through all his presents at once, I just can't wait any more. It is now time to talk about Kim Richards. Oh, Kim, I've missed you so so much, and you did not at all disappoint last night. You are still my favorite. Kim is just 30 days out of rehab and she's already back on the Housewives treadmill, which means she's headed for a big old crash sometime in the near future. We see her going to her sister Kathy Hilton's house which is very exciting because this is the first time that any of the Hiltons have dared to bow down and be on this little reality enterprise with their less fortunate sisters. Kathy, who looks like she dressed as Candace Bergen for Halloween and never took off her outfit, is helping Kim's daughter Kimberly (which is the craziest normal name since Prince Michael Jackson II) find a prom dress. Kathy has all these dresses lined up and I can't tell if they are like her dress line or she just has a rack of dresses in her living room and everyone gets to try them on? Probably the later. Then Kathy asks Kimberly if she's gotten a boutineer and both Kimberlys in the room say, "What?" Then Original Recipe Kim says, "I got a boot and I can hear!" Oh, good one Kim. I would have gone with, "I've a booty and you are near," but maybe she doesn't want to talk about her younger daughter and booty right to everyone's face.
They're all sitting around and Kim tells us one of her stories that lets us inside her soul. "Kath, do you remember that prom I went to the prom with Dan? Remember him? He was one of the other Disney actors and neither of us went to a real high school so we didn't have a prom, but he got invited by a friend of his to go to his prom somewhere in Altadena and he asked me to go because he didn't really know any other girls. Well, I went to the wardrobe department and I was 17 and I told them that I wanted a dress that was beautiful and flowing and kind of sexy but not like too sexy, you know. We went through racks and racks and racks of clothing and it was so fun and I felt like a princess. It made me feel so special, all those dresses just for me and a cute boy who really seemed to like me. I got all dressed up and it was a long purple dress with some flowers by the bodice and we did my hair up all big and poofy, remember Kath? We had the whole makeup team at the house making me gorgeous and you and Kyle were so jealous that I was going to the prom with Dan.
"And then he pulls up, not in a limo or anything, but in a pickup truck, and it had a camper attached to the back! It wasn't like a Winnebago or anything, it was one of those pop up campers so it just looked like a flat bed and it was beige and had orange stripes around it and I was so scared of that camper. That camper had a bed in it and Mommy told me never to be around boys and beds because that means he's going to try to reach for my special treasure box, and I couldn't let just anyone open that box. Mommy said it could only be opened once by a really good boy who I really loved and that Danny wasn't the boy. So, I was scared of that camper and getting my dress dirty in the pickup truck, but we drove all the way out to Altadena and we had our prom at this place called the Aquaturf, which was crazy because there was no aqua and no turf. Hahahahaa.
"Anyway, we didn't really know anyone else there so we just talked to each other and laughed and tried to make new friends and they told us they'd seen us in the movies and on TV and people didn't know what to do with us. They wanted to be our friends, but they were scared, you know. After the prom most everyone went to this bonfire somewhere out in the woods, but Mommy said I had to be home so Danny and I left. But on the way, he pulled over at the movie theater down the street from our house and he pulled in the back of the parking lot, where the cars never go. 'I have something I have to show you. Wait here,' he said.
"He got out of the car and started to crank open that camper and I got really scared. I didn't want to go back there with him because he was gonna try to touch my treasure box and I didn't want him to, but he cranked that camper up and it was fully open and then he went in and was doing something in there and banging and making all these noises, and I was so nervous I thought about getting out of the car and calling Mommy to come get me, but just as I reached for the door, he was there on my side and opened the door and held my hand as I stepped down. He lead me into that camper and I was so nervous, I didn't know what to do. I was so scared.
"But we got to the door and he opened it and there was a bed, but that's not what he wanted. Right there in the doorway was this little table that had like Formica on it but it looked like wood and on that cheap table was a big vase full of roses and two candles that were lit and two small champagne flutes. He poured us both some champagne and it made my throat feel warm as I drank it down and then I felt loose and I felt so special that he had done all that for me. We drank some more and we finished the bottle and I felt so great inside and we were laughing and talking and dreaming about the house we would buy together some day and start a family and my head felt all swimmy.
"That's when he leaned over and kissed me, and it felt so good. It was the first time. At 17 it was the first time that a boy had ever kissed me. I felt so loved and like we really connected and a little bit like I was going to fall over, but it felt so good. He stood me up and lead me over to the bed in the camper and I went with him. We kissed and kissed and I moved his hand under my dress and up my thigh and I thought, 'Why not? Why not let him into my, you know, treasure box,' but he said, 'No, Kim. That's not what I want. I just want to be with you and kiss you.' And we kissed for a long time and then we just lied there, with me tangled up in his arms, my hair getting messy on the bed. We fell asleep like that and woke up in the morning and I was so scared Mommy was going to kill me because we had been out all night. The candles were burned down and we packed the camper up and he drove me home and Mom was pissed. Even though I told her nothing happened, she didn't really believe me, but it was the greatest night of my life, that prom. Yeah, the best night of my life. I wonder where Dan is now?"
What a lovely story, Kim. Thanks for that. The only person who is in more love is the new Housewife Yolanda Foster, the only Yolanda I've ever seen on TV who didn't have a talk show in the '90s. We don't know much about Yolanda right now. She's a friend of Lisa and was married to Lisa's friend Mohammed, the one who dates living blow up dolls and throws elaborate parties for Lisa every year where there are elephants in the driveway and creepy screaming mermaids by the pool. She used to be a model and now she is married to composer David Foster. Oh, and she is Dutch, which means her kitchen has a Dutch Oven (that was as close to a fart joke as I could get today).
The one thing we know about Yolanda and David's marriage is that he writes her love notes every day. They go something like this:
"My Dearest Yolanda:
It has been five years since I first saw you sunbathing topless on St. Bart's and not a day goes by when I don't dedicate the boner I have when I wake up in the morning to the sight of your toned behind on the beach that day. You are my everything. You are my eggs in the morning and my After Eight Mints at night. You are the moon and the stars, but you're not famous like a real star, just like a reality star. You bring me tea with flowers and you put up with the rude way I treat all your friends even as I am undressing them with my eyes. I have an Oscar. Let's fuck, but then you have to leave me alone because I have to work.
Love, Your David
So, yes, Yolanda is at Lisa's party and meets everyone and Kim is a big fan of hers because Kim, like any addict, always cozies up to the new girl. Why? Because that is the girl she hasn't wronged yet! Yolanda loves Kim! The one fun thing we find out about her is that she and Kyle have the same birthday and I look at them and they are like Yin and Yang (and by Yin and Yang, I mean the cats my Chinese neighbor has). They are like two halves of one person, the light and the darkness. But which one will be witch (misspelling intentional).
Nothing much happens at the party except people are being weird about Brandi because, well, she pissed just about everyone off with her awesomeness. Kim and Kyle are also having a strained relationship, because duh. That's the funny thing about rehab. You think that if you fix one problem it will fix them all, but you have all those foundational instabilities from the years of drinking and mistreating each other and you can't just fix those by sobering up. It's going to take hard work. Kim, like always, says she wished things can go back to the way they were, but the one lesson in life Kim needs to learn is that you can't go back. You can't just find that warm spot in the bed once you get up. No, you need to lie back down and warm up another spot. That is how life works. You can't go back, you can only plow through the now to get to the soon. The soon will be better.
Everyone is having a boring time at the Villa Blanca Party and then suddenly, four people come walking in with something that looks like a sea monster washed up on the shore, died, spilled its organs out onto the beach, and the whole thing cooked in the sun for three days. "What the fuck is this thing?" Lisa says? Oh, there's a card. "Congrats on your party. Best of luck, HRH Adrienne of the Maloofs."
Yes, it was a flower arrangement, but these were a very rare and exotic breed of flowers called the Passivio Aggressivus. Apparently they grow orange and yellow and only prosper in giant piles of shit which, sadly, have to be delivered along with the flowers. They say, "I want to pretend like I'm giving you something nice, but really, eat shit."
This was the absolute worst thing ever to happen at a Real Housewives party, and I mean that seriously. Sure, Joanna Krupa got her face bashed in just last week on Housewives Miami, but this is even worse. These are spite flowers. And not just any spite flowers, they are ugly spite flowers. (Why would you send anything of color to a place called Villa Blanca? Huh?) So, Adrienne didn't make it to the party, but she made her presence known with a turd and a howl, as a dozen people had to carry in her turd blossoms. Ugh, this was just the worst. And everyone there made a grimace and shook their head in unison, like it was a new line dance like the Macarena or the Gangnam Style. What a sad, sad display for Queen Adrienne.
But at home, she sat on her throne and smiled into the hand mirror that she made her husband, Pollo the Chimp, hold in front of her face. "Oh, they're all going to love me now," she thought. "They're going to see those flowers and think, look at how Lisa has done Adrienne wrong. She should be there. She should be invited. Yes, those flowers will prove how great I am. Don't you see? Don't you see that my plan is finally coming together?" She threw her head back and laughed her hearty laugh and put her snub nose up in the air as the caverns under the mountain catapulted the sound back and forth, the echo rising up into a rumble that made the ground quake, that made the trees on top of the mountain tremble, but when the laugh was done, they settled back down, and the boughs seemed to droop lower than ever before.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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There is something particularly unnerving about demon possession. It's the idea of something you can't see or control creeping into your body and taking up residence eventually obliterating all you once were and turning you into nothing more than a sack of meat to be manipulated. Then there's also the shrouded ritual around exorcisms: the Latin chants the flesh-sizzling crucifixes and the burning Holy Water. As it turns out exorcism isn't just the domain of Catholics.
The myths and legends of the Jews aren't nearly as well known but their creepy dybbuk goes toe-to-toe with anything other world religions come up with. There are various interpretations of what a dybbuk is or where it comes from — is it a ghost a demon a soul of a sinner? — but in any case it's looking for a body to hang out in for a while. Especially according to the solemn Hasidic Jews in The Possession an innocent young person and even better a young girl.
The central idea in The Possession is that a fancy-looking wooden box bought at a garage sale was specifically created to house a dybbuk that was tormenting its previous owner. Unfortunately it caught the eye of young Emily (Natasha Calis) a sensitive artistic girl who persuades her freshly divorced dad Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan of Watchmen and Grey's Anatomy) to buy it for her. Never mind the odd carvings on it — that would be Hebrew — or how it's created without seams so it would be difficult to open or why it's an object of fascination for a young girl; Clyde is trying really hard to please his disaffected daughters and do the typical freshly divorced parent dance of trying to please them no matter the cost.
Soon enough the creepy voices calling to Emily from the box convince her to open it up; inside are even creepier personal objects that are just harbingers of what's to come for her her older sister Hannah (Madison Davenport) her mom Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) and even Stephanie's annoying new boyfriend Brett (Grant Show). Clyde and Stephanie squabble over things like pizza for dinner and try to convince each other and themselves that Emily's increasingly odd behavior is that of a troubled adolescent. It's not of course and eventually Clyde enlists the help of the son of a Hasidic rabbi a young man named Tzadok played by the former Hasidic reggae musician Matisyahu to help them perform an exorcism on Emily.
The Possession is not going to join the ranks of The Exorcist in the horror pantheon but it does do a remarkable job of making its characters intelligent and even occasionally droll and it offers up plenty of chills despite a PG-13 rating. Perhaps it's because of that rating that The Possession is so effective; the filmmakers are forced to make the benign scary. Giant moths and flying Torahs take the place of little Reagan violently masturbating with a crucifix in The Exorcist. Gagging and binging on food is also an indicator of Emily's possession — an interesting twist given the anxieties of becoming a woman a girl Emily's age would face. There is something inside her controlling her and she knows it and she is fighting it. The most impressive part of Calis's performance is how she communicates Emily's torment with a few simple tears rolling down her face as the dybbuk's control grows. The camerawork adds to the anxiety; one particularly scary scene uses ordinary glass kitchenware to great effect.
The Possession is a short 92 minutes and it does dawdle in places. It seems as though some of the scenes were juggled around to make the PG-13 cut; the moth infestation scene would have made more sense later in the movie. Some of the problems are solved too quickly or simply and yet it also takes a while for Clyde's character to get with it. Stephanie is a fairly bland character; she makes jewelry and yells at Clyde for not being present in their marriage a lot and then there's a thing with a restraining order that's pretty silly. Emily is occasionally dressed up like your typical horror movie spooky girl with shadowed eyes an over-powdered face and dark clothes; it's much more disturbing when she just looks like an ordinary though ill young girl. The scenes in the heavily Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn look oddly fake and while it's hard to think of who else could have played Tzadok an observant Hasidic Jew who is also an outsider willing to take risks the others will not Matisyahu is not a very good actor. Still the filmmakers should be commended for authenticity insofar as Matisyahu has studied and lived as a Hasidic Jew.
It would be cool if Lionsgate and Ghost House Pictures were to release the R-rated version of the movie on DVD. What the filmmakers have done within the confines of a PG-13 rating is creepy enough to make me curious to see the more adult version. The Possession is no horror superstar and its name is all too forgettable in a summer full of long-gestating horror movies quickly pushed out the door. It's entertaining enough and could even find a broader audience on DVD. Jeffrey Dean Morgan can read the Old Testament to me any time.

A kids’ movie without the cheeky jokes for adults is like a big juicy BLT without the B… or the T. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted may have a title that sounds like it was made up in a cartoon sequel laboratory but when it comes to serving up laughs just think of the film as a BLT with enough extra bacon to satisfy even the wildest of animals — or even a parent with a gaggle of tots in tow. Yes even with that whole "Afro Circus" nonsense.
It’s not often that we find exhaustively franchised films like the Madagascar set that still work after almost seven years. Despite being spun off into TV shows and Christmas specials in addition to its big screen adventures the series has not only maintained its momentum it has maintained the part we were pleasantly surprised by the first time around: great jokes.
In this third installment of the series – the trilogy-maker if you will – directing duo Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath add Conrad Vernon (director Monsters Vs. Aliens) to the helm as our trusty gang swings back into action. Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) are stuck in Africa after the hullaballoo of Madagascar 2 and they’ll do anything to get back to their beloved New York. Just a hop skip and a jump away in Monte Carlo the penguins are doing their usual greedy schtick but the zoo animals catch up with them just in time to catch the eye of the sinister animal control stickler Captain Dubois (Frances McDormand). And just like that the practically super human captain is chasing them through Monte Carlo and the rest of Europe in hopes of planting Alex’s perfectly coifed lion head on her wall of prized animals.
Luckily for pint-sized viewers Dubois’ terrifying presence is balanced out by her sheer inhuman strength uncanny guiles and Stretch Armstrong flexibility (ah the wonder of cartoons) as well as Alex’s escape plan: the New Yorkers run away with the European circus. While Dubois’ terrifying Doberman-like presence looms over the entire film a sense of levity (which is a word the kiddies might learn from Stiller’s eloquent lion) comes from the plan for salvation in which the circus animals and the zoo animals band together to revamp the circus and catch the eye of a big-time American agent. Sure the pacing throughout the first act is practically nonexistent running like a stampede through the jungle but by the time we're palling around under the big top the film finds its footing.
The visual splendor of the film (and man is there a champion size serving of it) the magnificent danger and suspense is enhanced to great effect by the addition of 3D technology – and not once is there a gratuitous beverage or desperate Crocodile Dundee knife waved in our faces to prove its worth. The caveat is that the soundtrack employs a certain infectious Katy Perry ditty at the height of the 3D spectacular so parents get ready to hear that on repeat until the leaves turn yellow.
But visual delights and adventurous zoo animals aside Madagascar 3’s real strength is in its script. With the addition of Noah Baumbach (Greenberg The Squid and the Whale) to the screenwriting team the script is infused with a heightened level of almost sarcastic gravitas – a welcome addition to the characteristically adult-friendly reference-heavy humor of the other Madagascar films. To bring the script to life Paramount enlisted three more than able actors: Vitaly the Siberian tiger (Bryan Cranston) Gia the Leopard (Jessica Chastain) and Stefano the Italian Sealion (Martin Short). With all three actors draped in European accents it might take viewers a minute to realize that the cantankerous tiger is one and the same as the man who plays an Albuquerque drug lord on Breaking Bad but that makes it that much sweeter to hear him utter slant-curse words like “Bolshevik” with his usual gusto.
Between the laughs the terror of McDormand’s Captain Dubois and the breathtaking virtual European tour the Zoosters’ accidental vacation is one worth taking. Madagascar 3 is by no means an insta-classic but it’s a perfectly suited for your Summer-at-the-movies oasis.